Logs:Re-Cookie

Re-Cookie
Dramatis Personae Jax, Roscoe
In Absentia	2024-08-07 "Nobody in the Rec Room is up late studying."
Location <XAV> Kitchen - Xs First Floor
The kitchen staff at Xavier's tends well to the needs of its residents. Always cognizant of its students and faculty's dietary needs alike, the menu has a wide variety of choices, and the longtime cook works wonders in the kitchen. The pantry, too, is kept well stocked for those who want to come prepare themselves their own snacks. The shelf, fridge, and freezer space is ample, though if anyone wants to keep their own food there, they'd better make sure it's labeled clearly, and even that is no guarantee it'll last. Dinner is long since done and gone, and as it edges into solidly Nighttime now, the kitchen is quiet. It's lively all the same -- there is a wealth of vibrant plant life climbing up the walls, strange otherworldly vines with vivid and uncanny flowers, odd fae creatures tucked among the greenery who seem cheerful and luminous at first with their bright hair and brught butterfly-wings, teeth and claws visible only at a nearer glance. The whole of the bold redecoration is shifting -- colors changing, flowers snapping closed on unsuspecting fairies, old leaves withering and new ones growing. The shift all comes in time to the only barely-audible music coming from small open-ear headphones tucked onto Jax's ears. He's bopping his head in time with the music, standing at a counter (bright, himself, in asymmetrically color-blocked short sleeve button-down and black jeans heavily splattered with paint, his boots not-actually-mismatched, one ombre-rainbow with a black sole and the other black with an ombre-rainbow sole) and carefully scooping dough from a large bowl into his palm to roll it into a ball, pat it gently into some coarse sugar, and add it to a baking tray. It's clearly not the first tray -- the kitchen is already warm from the ovens, and smelling sweetly of citrus and spices. The door opens and closes very quietly but the student that slips inside makes his presence known almost immediately by nearly stepping on one of these floaty glowing creature, "Ack!" punctuated by the rustle-crackle of plasticky wrapper when he clutches his single packet of Maggi 2 Minute Curry Noodles to his chest. Roscoe is less colorful -- plain white shirt with a small pixelly heart printed on the pocket, grey-green flannel shorts with a Celtics shamrock, bad dye job now a slightly faded orange-blond -- but he finds his footing again in these overgrown surroundings quickly enough, wandering to peer (around Jax? through Jax? He's keeping a semi-respectful distance) at this process. "Whatcha making," has a tone of determined, practiced nosiness. "Ohhi!" Jax has just set another cookie down on the tray but at Company he lifts a hand towards one of his earbuds, reflexively. This ends in a grimace and some oily sugar caught on the headphones and probably his ear as well -- he's wrinkling his nose and leaving his work to very immediately go scrub his hands clean again, the earbud itself set aside to deal with later. "Snickerdoodles. S'some raspberry lemon ones and some chai." As he pats his hands dry he's peeking over towards the oven. "-- got barely a minute left on the first batch, they'll be outta there by the time your noodles is ready." "Raspberry lemon?" Roscoe repeats, a little dubiously. "Chai makes sense." He doesn't actually say that lemon raspberry doesn't, yet, but when he tilts his head and sniffs, he still seems a little unconvinced by the warm, fragrant air wafting from the ovens, but he nods -- "Okay." His movements around the kitchen are a little jumpy -- when he goes to get cookware and utensils, when he goes to fill his pot with water at the sink, when he goes to the stove, he's keeping close to the walls like he's leery of getting in the way; once the stove is turned on he tucks himself against the counter, fussily lining his chopsticks up just so on a spoon rest. "Who are the cookies for?" he asks. Jax just laughs at this, quiet, though a brighter ripple flutters through his unsettlig decorations. "Any food that tastes good makes sense. Plus it's a jillion degrees outside, that's summertime flavor weather." He's lining up a couple cooling racks on another counter, his brow creasing in some puzzlement at the question. "Oh! Um -- anyone? You? Other kids?" His smile is bright and kind of amused. "I know a lot of kids think all the snacks in the Rec Room just show up by magic, try not to ruin Santa for 'em." He's moving over to the oven, and though he doesn't touch its light a small glow blossoms within it. He peeks at the cookies inside and then opens the ovens, not bothering with oven mitts though his hands are glowing fiercely as he takes the trays out. He sets the cookies down on the counter, and with a (tiny! perfectly cookie-sized!) spatula starts transferring them to the cooling racks. "I usually do a second round of somethin' early in the morning for when y'all get up but this is for the late studiers and folks who don't sleep." While he waits for his water to boil Roscoe goes to the fridge to get an egg, and sets that in the spoon rest too. "I knew that was you," has a bit of a petulant edge to it for no reason, but as he settles back against the counter he adds, "It's nice that you just do that for us. I always forget dessert even exists." He's very deliberately not watching his pot -- maybe this will help it boil? -- instead widening his eyes as Jax opens the oven, "Isn't that --" but when Jax does not immediately burn his palms off, he interrupts himself with an impressed, "-- huh." Then, at last, his attention is pulled to his noodles; as he's shaking his seasoning packet by one corner he says, "Nobody in the Rec Room is up late studying." "Secretly it's just a constant plug for my class, I don't get enough people interested in baking and I won't get to teach it no more. 'sides, Ms. Chavan handles the savory side real good." Jax finishes transferring the trays of cookies, stacking the cooling racks atop each other. The light in his hands has faded, and he rinses them off under cool water before turning back to the dough he's been shaping. He's returning to the methodical task of forming the cookies, rolling them, patting them into the sugar. "No kidding? All this time I been thinking the Rec was for re-cogitating." Roscoe cracks his egg into his pot before he adds the noodles in, prods at his floating noodle brick with his chopsticks. "People don't just take your class 'cause you're you?" he says; his eyes follow the cookie sheets over to the cooling racks. He mouths 're-cogitating' to himself, a little squinty with confusion, but after a moment he says, "Shoot, I only use that to re-kick it." "Oh, I get plenty kids in my art classes but y'all only need one vo tech class class and the cookie baking is..." Jax shrugs a shoulder. He's scraping the last of the dough from the bowl, patting it into a cookie shape, too. He shoots a grin over his shoulder as he goes to put his last two trays in the oven. "Wait, where you kicking it the first time 'round?" Roscoe turns off the stove and moves his pot to a potholder on the counter in front of a stool, rests his chopsticks across the brim. "Food is scarier to mess up," he says. "Somebody has to eat that, I don't want it to taste bad. If I screw up a drawing, I can just draw another one." It takes him a little bit of time to unearth a soup spoon he likes from the cluttered silverware drawer, but at last he is sitting down to his... meal? snack? He shrugs. "I dunno. The re-cafeteria? Re-class?" "S'fair enough. But you and folks 'round you are gonna have to eat your whole life long. Art helps keep folks' spirits up for sure but s'kinda fun to have one that keeps 'em alive, too." Jax resets the oven timer, and heads back to the counter to start washing up his dishes. "Got space in the fall if you want to de-scarify it a bit. Try some Re-cooking." For a moment Roscoe is more focused on eating than on responding, sitting in a slight hunch at the counter, but after a moment he slowly swivels on his stool to peer over his shoulder at Jax. "I can re..." after a pause he just gives up, "...register." Around the room the greenery is withering up, flowers shrivelling and falling off, leaves browning and falling away before the plants vanish altogether. "Catalog -- course --" Jax wrinkles his nose with exaggerated resignation as he puts his dishes away. "Okay no I got nothing. I'd say see you in fall but, y'know. Also most days before then." "I'll see you," Roscoe informs Jax solemnly; already he's sliding off his stool to go nab a cookie.